Everyone has a meal plan until they get punched in the mouth

A story about calorie counting.

This little illustrated story was inspired by doing a keto diet at the beginning of the year, and goes out to anyone who has ever calorie counted, meal planned, or felt that very particular type of misery that accompanies weighing their food on a scale.

In the coming weeks I’m hoping to put out a two-part series on Albania which I have lots of thoughts on but am still very much trying to unravel. I’m hoping it will be worth it and at least provide some interesting stories.

In the meantime, hope you enjoy this short piece. Would love to hear what you think.

The calorie counting had gotten off to a good start.

He'd kicked things off by logging a chicken dinner and three veg, followed by a strawberry and ten pumpkin seeds. It was all ticking along well. The app was pleased with that.

Well done, Dennis. You're on your way.

On Thursday while on a walk in the forest, he'd picked and eaten a blueberry off a bush. A delightful and seemingly harmless treat, but the app didn't like that one bit.

Its macro rings spinning wildly. Alerts popping up every which way.

Stick to the meal plan. The message was loud and clear.

Dennis was rattled and made a concerted effort to pull himself in line. In the days thereafter, he followed the app's instructions to a tee.

A portion of nuts the size of a weasel’s fist.

A sniff of a banana.

A longing gaze at a rhubarb tart.

‘Can I lick this stamp?’ He'd asked the app, holding up a postage stamp of an orange poppyseed cake in front of the phone camera. Two licks, it replied. Dennis treated himself to one immediately and decided he'd have the other after dinner, not wanting to overdo it.

He stopped seeing his friends. They were a bad influence, the app had said. Dennis had come home chewing an apple stem he'd snaffled off his friend Tina's old apple core, and that was that.

He stayed home all the time nowadays. It was easier. He’d stare out the window, sometimes trying to get the attention of some birds. 'Are you going to finish that?' gesturing to a half eaten worm. But the birds would always fly off, along with the half eaten worm.

One day as the postman was dropping off some mail he caught a glimpse of Dennis through the window.

'Morning! Gosh you're looking trim!'

'Thank you!' Dennis beamed. 'I'm using a calorie counting app. I can send you a referral code?'

'Please do! I could use the help', the postman said, tapping his belly.

The app vibrated, demonstrating its pleasure. A notification came through informing Dennis that he’d qualified for a referral reward; a delicious cherry lip balm. Dennis began vibrating too, partly from pleasure, but more so from malnourishment.

It was all worth it, thought Dennis, wolfing down the lip balm. He was almost summer ready.

He sat by the window and licked the plastic casing of the lip balm clean. Maybe he would tell his friends about the app, they’ll probably be wondering why he looks so good anyway.

The app vibrated with pleasure again. Dennis vibrated again too.